


The Woman In Me (Needs The Man In You)

by LogicGunn



Series: The Long Dark [11]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Long Dark (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Long Dark Fusion, Fluff, John's POV, M/M, Post-Apocalyptic, Survival, romance novels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:54:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27743314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogicGunn/pseuds/LogicGunn
Summary: It’s 1400 and Rodney still isn’t back from the train.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Series: The Long Dark [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583821
Comments: 13
Kudos: 52





	The Woman In Me (Needs The Man In You)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is blatantly stolen from Shania Twain. For some reason her music makes me think of romance novels.

It’s 1400 and Rodney still isn’t back from the train. He went out just after brunch to get some supplies – canned tomato and pasta and a couple of packets of dried egg – things that they’ve been running low on despite how carefully they’ve been rationing and the fact that they have stuck to their rule that one of their two meals a day has to be entirely from self-sufficient means. John’s already pushed portion sizes down as low as is feasible, but they’re making trips to the train once a week to replenish supplies and it’s more often than John was expecting. On top of that, Rodney’s been out for almost three hours. It takes him thirty-five minutes to walk the two kilometres there on a bad day, and today really isn’t a bad day. John’s not exactly worried because Rodney took the rifle and he hasn’t heard a gunshot, but he is curious what could occupy his brilliant brain for so long. 

John finishes up with the dishes and hangs the dishtowel on the hook above the sink. They’ve made a few adjustments to the cabin this autumn: hooks in useful places, WD40 on every squeaking hinge in the building, a couple of paintings up on the wall, things to make it more homely and less like a commercial office that happens to have beds. Rodney made John help him gather up everything that can’t be used (computers and telephones and what have you) and drag it on a sled to the cabins on the far side of the frozen lake. Then he made him replace what was being dumped with framed paintings, two comfortable chairs, a small coffee table and a couple of tins of blackboard paint. The very next day Rodney rearranged the downstairs to make room for a sitting area of sorts, the two chairs angled side by side and the table between them, a view out the front window in arms reach of the jury-rigged bookshelves. The day after that he painted the entire side wall in blackboard paint and when it dried, he covered one half in sudoku puzzles and the other in various equations and proofs of the kind that John doesn't dare ask about. 

(At the end of a particularly late night, after some seriously vigorous love-making, Rodney admitted to having proved one of the millennial problems, “...and just think of all the things I could have achieved on the project if I’d been a part of it? Hello! No one would have become stranded on any islands!”) 

All of the decorating and furnishing gave way to a thoroughly domesticated Rodney McKay, one who eschewed going outside for anything less essential than hunting or log chopping, who spent hours at a time sitting in his comfy chair reading or writing or contemplating the forces that keep the solar system together. And so this extended excursion to the train is unexpected, an aberration, something that really does not compute with what John knows about Rodney and his preferred methods of spending his day. So John wraps himself up in outdoor clothes, grabs a rucksack, and sets off for the train. It’s a calm day today, the sun up in the sky and no real wind to speak of. John follows Rodney and Miska’s footprints onto then along the train tracks, spotting where Miska wondered off to play then came bounding back, a mound of fluffy snow where she clearly did one of her patented emergency stops at Rodney’s feet. 

The train comes into view, and John announces himself loudly so as not to surprise Rodney into falling off the side. As soon as she hears him, Miska comes running over, her tongue lolling out of her mouth. She doesn’t jump up and drape her paws on his shoulders, they’ve trained her out of that, but he can tell that she really, really wants to, so he crouches down and gives her a big scratch on the back of her neck. 

“How ya doing, girl?” 

She doesn’t seem worse for wear or distressed in any way, so Rodney’s obviously not far off and not in trouble, but he didn’t answer John’s call so something’s really got his attention. John hauls himself up onto the train and slips in the door. The carriage is crammed full of crates and boxes of supplies, everything from pasta to toothpaste to books to sewing materials. They took everything they could from Quonset, and with any luck they have several years' worth of food and toiletries to keep them going, and who knows? Maybe they’ll luck out and find another settlement to plunder. But that might not happen and so John vows to take another look at their inventory and try to stretch everything even further. 

John hears Rodney cough from the next carriage, so he pushes open the door between them and steps in. The sight before him is not what he was expecting. Rodney’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, his back to the outside of the carriage’s hallway, a red crate of books spilled out and surrounding him on all sides. He’s so engrossed in reading a book that he doesn’t even notice that John is there. 

“Hey buddy,” says John. 

Rodney starts with fright and looks up at him accusingly. “You scared me half to death!” 

“Any more noise and I’d have alerted Nunavut’s coast guard to our location.” 

“Hmmm.” 

“What’s got you so engrossed?” 

Rodney holds out his book with an air of someone preparing to be teased. John resolves to refrain from any form of mockery, but one look at the cover of the book really pushes that to the limit: a buxom woman in a figure-hugging dress being embraced by a half-naked cowboy with rippling muscles...it’s a bodice ripper, an old one, and well-read judging by the spine cracks and dogeared pages. 

“Before you say anything-” begins Rodney. 

“I wasn’t going to say a thing,” says John. 

“It’s actually a really good book.” 

“It must be since you’ve been sitting here reading it for three hours.” 

“I didn’t mean to...I’ve just been...I mean I was trying to pick a book to bring back to read, so I was reading the first few pages of all the books in this crate and it just took me over!” 

“You don’t have to justify your reading choices Rodney, it’s not like we have a Barnes and Noble out here.” 

“It’s got everything, it’s got adventure and mystery and murder and, yes, romance, but that’s not all it is. And surprisingly it has some really healthy examples of consent and body autonomy for women, and I just-” 

“Rodney, it’s fine. If it’s that good I’ll read it when you’re done.” 

“You will?” 

“Of course.” 

“Oh, well...okay then.” 

John looks at the disaster zone surrounding Rodney. “Are these all romance novels?” 

“Uh, most of them. Some of them are crime thrillers but I couldn’t find the first in the series and I hate to read them out of order.” 

“Did you try in that red crate over there?” 

Rodney looks around. “What red- oh. No, I didn’t see it.” 

“Tell you what,” says John, stepping over the books to get to the crate. “You pack up those books on the floor and I’ll look for book number one, deal?” 

“Okay, deal.” 

John opens the lid of the crate. There are a bunch more books inside, all packed spine-up. “What’s the series called?” he asks. 

“It’s the Inspector Rebus series by Ian Rankin. The first book is called Knots and Crosses.” 

“Found it.” 

“You did?” 

John pulls it out of its home and hands it to Rodney. “It was at the top.” 

“Thanks.” 

John packs the forgotten food in his rucksack and ends up taking a few of the books too. They close up the train and jump down, calling Miska to heel as they start back down the tracks to home. John nudges Rodney’s shoulder with his, would reach for his hand but he’s carrying the rifle and Rodney gets antsy if someone isn’t prepared for bears at all times. 

“So. Positive sex messages, huh?” he says as he watches Miska bound off ahead. 

“Oh, shut up,” says Rodney, his face reddening rapidly, but he’s grinning from ear to ear. 

“You know,” says John. “There’s bound to be a cowboy hat somewhere on the island...” 


End file.
